


The silence between all things

by bestaceinspace



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-19
Updated: 2013-05-19
Packaged: 2017-12-12 06:01:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/808123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bestaceinspace/pseuds/bestaceinspace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A killer doesn’t have wounds. He has scars, but these scars never really sink deep into his skin. They are, in fact, visible in the emptiness of his eyes, and in the shadows on his face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The silence between all things

John Reese was a killer.

\--

A killer doesn’t have wounds. He has scars, but these scars never really sink deep into his skin. They are, in fact, visible in the emptiness of his eyes, and in the shadows on his face.

When you kill someone, you also kill parts of yourself. The shadows grow bigger and bigger around you until it’s impossible not to lose yourself in darkness.

You get used to pain. You bruise and you bleed, and it doesn’t feel like the wounds are in your body.

It’s like you become someone else. Some lost soul trapped in a shallow body.

You are ready for everything, because emotions are not something you are capable of anymore, and accepting your own death is normal.

After a while, John simply lost count of how many lives he had taken.

And, in that amount of uncountable numbers, he lost himself.

\--

The first time Harold Finch saw Reese, he didn’t see a killer. He saw a broken man.

But he knew, even thought people were not machines, that they could be put back together, somehow. He just didn’t know yet if they could be truly fixed, because, for starters, Finch couldn’t fix himself anymore and maybe that’s why he lost his faith.

\--

When John Reese first met Finch and began working with the billionaire in a job he still didn’t completely understand, he also started to put his pieces back together, and repairing what could be reparable.

Some pieces needed to be replaced, actually.

But he couldn’t change what he had become, after so many years of having his soul sucked out of his body.

Well, maybe, at least, he could finally make amends.

And, after sometime, scars that he never felt like his own started to bleed together with new bruises and wounds.

That time he felt it.

\--

When you start saving people, it doesn’t mean you can trade those lives for the ones you once took.

Reese was not a hero. He never intended to be one.

Finch never expected something else from him, anyway. Even so, Harold felt a difference as days went by and they got closer, even with all secrets they kept to themselves.

All scars gained in the past were left behind.

But, even in the shadows, Finch could swear he noticed the emptiness in Reese’s face begin to dissolve.

That crack in complete silence that said more than a thousand words.

\--

John Reese was a man.

\--

When Reese saved Finch for the first time, after his kidnapping, it got clear to both men that his reasons were not just because he knew he couldn’t continue saving the numbers without the hacker. It wasn’t just because he knew all those lives were going to be lost, but because he knew he would be lost as well.

The thing was Finch had saved him first, and that had been the turning point in their lives.

Reese needed Finch because, even though he could save a lot of lives, Reese didn’t know anymore how to save himself.

\--

John Reese was just a ghost.

\--

The thing is you can only become a killer if first you kill everything you ever were in the past.

You have no honor. You get used to walking with the shadows beside you; you feel them like a weight on your shoulders, until you and the shadows become just one dark blur hidden in the night.

Finch was just the same as Reese, because he had been dead way before they first met.

The truth is losing someone kills parts of yourself too, until you lose everything you were, because that someone was a big part of you, making the other parts of yourself become meaningless.

Until you completely disappear.

\--

Finch knew that when everything you see is numbers, you start to realize the great value words have.

Because words can’t be replaced by numbers or a touch of fingers, too vague to be meaningful.

Harold knew smiles, comforting words and a hand resting on his shoulder wouldn’t fill the blanks he will always have in his heart. He also knew Reese could never have some parts of himself band together again, because he was already buried in the past. Dead. Both were.

John Reese was a killer.

He was a man.

Or maybe only just a ghost.

Still, Harold _sees_ him.

And, in the end, that’s all that mattered.


End file.
